私がこれまでに出会った神官たちは世俗を超越している振りをしない。（翻訳訂正2015.9、thank you for the information on the Yahoo!）— これまでに世界中で会った人たちと違って．神道の神官は儀式を執り行うが，その多くはタクシードライバーから自衛隊員，医者，主夫，などの他の仕事も持っている．もちろんフルタイムの神官もいる．神社は神道の聖地である．しかしある神官が指摘してくれたが，これは定まらない解釈ではっきりとしたものではない．

(I wrote this with one pass and no edit -- big hurry today -- please excuse any typos.)

It is important again to thank many Japanese for taking so much time to help educate me on Japanese culture, politics, security, religion, and military.

Everyone from high Shinto Priests, Admirals, the highest level of government on many occasions, the most respected journalists in Japan, very successful business people, and normal people like me, have all taken time from their busy lives to explain important aspects of Japan.

A couple of days ago, I visited the important Meiji Jingu (shrine), but before that, I met with two Shinto priests at the Jinja-Honcho.

The person who took me on Friday, a new friend, was studying to become a Shinto priestess. Yesterday she passed her test and emailed today that she is now a Shinto priestess. Congratulations!

So there were four of us in the meeting. Two priests, Iwahashi Katsuji, and Hioki Haruhiko. And my friend who 24 hours later would also become a priest. And I.

It is impossible to attempt to understand Japan without some basic idea of Shinto, and so I have met with priests on numerous occasions for long talks.

Some literature will say that Shinto is the religion of Japan, but the priests all have told me that Shinto is not a religion as is understood in the west. Shinto is deeply entwined in the Japanese culture, and is not something painted atop the culture. Many Japanese are Shinto and Buddhist, for example.

Even some Buddhists monks have also told me that Buddhism is not really a religion in the sense of Christianity. But not to go into this trail with Buddhism -- which is an entirely other galaxy of philosophy. Back to Shinto.

According to the Priests, nobody knows who founded Shinto, or if it was founded at all. It may have sort of just grown on its own. There is no book. No Shinto Bible or Koran.

Religions can be transplanted. Shinto does not transplant because Shinto is per se part of the culture.

Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism are spread over thousands of cultures around the world. These religions do not belong to any particular culture. There are Korean, Filipino, Russian, German, Norwegian, Japanese, and American Christians.

But Shinto is Japanese. There are no Shinto missionaries. Shinto does not recruit.

To follow Shinto is to become Japanese, as some folks have told me.

There is no dogma. No Ten Commandments. Shinto Priests can marry and drink alcohol, for example. One night, I got an email from Japan from a friend. He said he was out having drinks with a Shinto Priest.

The Shinto Priests I have met do not pretend to be higher than the world -- the ones I have met are of the world.

Many Shinto Priests perform the Priestly duties but have another job, ranging from taxi driver to military officer to medical doctor to housewife. Others are full time Priests.

A jinja is a Shinto shrine, but as the priests pointed out, shrine is a shaky interpretation and not exact.

Jinja is jinja.

A shrine normally is associated with something, such as a graveyard. A gravestone is a kind of personal shrine. But a jinja does not have graves. Nobody is buried in the jinjas (well, not so far as I have been told).

So when we hear Yasukini Shrine, it is more accurate to say Yasukuni Jinja, but most people do not understand the word jinja. So Japanese will translate jinja to shrine when talking with people who do not understand.

On a side note, jinja rhymes with ninja. The Priest Katsuji told me during Friday's talk that he once lived in Kansas. I asked if Americans treated him well, and he said yes, he was very happy in Kansas. (Some of the best Americans come from Kansas, so this was not a surprise, but I was happy that Americans treated Katsuji well. The best Americans actually come from Florida, where I am from.)

Katsuji's English is actually better than that of many Americans. He speaks at a high university level with a strong vocabulary. He told a funny story about Kansas, saying that many people asked him about the ninjas. They wanted to know about ninjas.

Katsuji said he told them that there are no ninjas left. He said that some Americans did not believe him. When he told them that he had never seen a ninja, some Americans thought that was proof that ninjas exist. (Good grief!)

Anyway...

There are tens of thousands of jinjas around Japan.

Some jinjas have no priest, and some have many priests. Some priests service many jinjas. Some jinjas are gigantic. Others are tiny.

Women have been allowed to become priests since after World War II. Many priests fought in the wars and were killed, so there was a shortage. Japanese are practical people.

There was an issue with menstruation and that can be problematic for some rituals as the blood is deemed impure. (Similar in many cultures/religions -- we are all filled with blood so this always perplexes me.)

In any case, Katsuji said there are about 20,000 priests, and about 10% are women. (Including my friend!)

I must get this all accurate or I am sure to be corrected. One thing I enjoy about Japanese culture is their ideas for precision. The right word for the right thing, which can be tough when writing for an international readership who speak many languages. No excuses.

There is not one God in Shinto. A kami is our idea of a spirit, or deity. There are endless kamis. Everything is holy. Mother earth. A person can become a kami when he dies if he lived a good life -- I will stop there. (Need Shinto experts to explain more on that.)

When people die, all are equal. It does not matter if he was the esteemed Emperor, or an artist, a fisherman, or even a criminal. All are equal.

This is interesting -- when I visited the 442nd memorial in Los Angeles, there were no ranks beside the thousands of names. Just names on the memorial.

In death, their (our) job is to protect the living.

Side note: The 442nd was a World War II unit comprised of Japanese-Americans. It is the most decorated unit in US history. That is incredible. To be in the top 100 most decorated units in US history would be an incredible thing. To be number 1 is actually a horrific thing -- it means that very many died, but they died with incredible spirit defending the United States. Now they are all enshrined in Los Angeles.

I will have to cut this short as a journalist just flew to Tokyo and wants to grab dinner. Let's close with something about Yasukuni Jinja.

In recent years Chinese and some Koreans have been going crazy that the Japanese Prime Minister will actually visit Yasukuni Jinja. They say that Japanese are worshipping war criminals.

About 2.5 million people and animals are enshrined at Yasukuni, including Koreans and Taiwanese, as example. Some were deemed war criminals due to the kangaroo courts known as the Tokyo Trials. Some war criminals actually were Korean.

The Chinese government makes it out to be as if the Japanese are evoking spirits of war. If anything, the Chinese should be afraid of themselves. Nobody kills more Chinese than Chinese. Chinese made a self-genocide.

All those enshrined at Yasukuni are considered equal as this is the Shinto way.

Nobody is worshipping war criminals.

That is just the Chinese government exciting the Koreans and germinating hatred so that China can divide and conquer. China is a criminal country and criminals lie and never stop.

My apology. The journalist is waiting and I did not expect this. He is in from Washington and I want to tell him what the Chinese are up to. He already knows it, actually, but I think he does not know about the comfort women component.

7 comments:

Kami (Shinto's God) dwells in all things of the nature. It's called "Yaoyorozu-no-kami" (8 millions gods). It may seem primitive animism. In actually it's said that the origin is able to be traced to the Jomon period. And, as you know Japan is good at holding the tradition and to refine it.

The origin of Lacquerware was China, but it was decline at there. Although even in Japan, there will be obsolete others, many tradition is maintained. Superficially, It decline and doesn't appear in the center stage in many case. But one day, it is frequently linked with other things and revived as something new.

This is a mediocre opinion, but it seems that mind of Japanese that to care about something toward the nature is influenced by the climate. Japan is basically warming and soil is rich. Desert does not exist in there. There are many river and it is island nation surrounded by sea. From these, people has been able to receive a lot of grace. And there is color of clear four seasons. However, at the same time, it is mountainous land and there are many natural disasters like typhoon, earthquakes, tsunami, eruption.

I have a cousin who used to work at a Shinto shrine. I once asked her about the Shinto abhorrence to blood and she told me that blood is considered to be equivalent to "vital energy" and any blood found outside the living body symbolizes or is suggestive of death and so must be avoided. After my uncle (her father) died, she was not allowed to come back to her job for 3 months, until she was rid of the impurity of death.

Why Japanese Prime Minister can't go to Yasukuni Jinja.Thank you for your understanding of shinto. Japaense PM should go to Ysukuni Jinja and pray for all victims, and of course for fallen soldiers. Japanese have right to go and pray for fallen soldiers.Japanese should pray for fallen soldiers. If they didn't protect Japan, I wasn't born in Japan.They gave me the life here in Japan. They protected future Japan and Japaense.